


A is for Angst

by mific



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Anniversaries, Character Study, Fanfiction, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Quantum Mirror, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: Some things are too tempting. Some memories are better left to rest.





	A is for Angst

**Author's Note:**

> A "letter A" contribution to the SG1 "Alphabet Soup" genfic challenge, featuring the quantum mirror.

There was a whole lot of excitement after SG-7 found another quantum mirror in an ancient facility, but they soon found it wasn’t a lot of use. In fact, it was mostly just another weak point in their defenses, even after Daniel found the remote and Carter figured out how to program it.

You had to be persistent to the point of obsession to click through an infinite array of universes so as to find anything vaguely promising. Anything that wasn’t hard vacuum, an asteroid belt, molten lava, a cloud of toxic gas or suchlike. Anything remotely Earth-like, remotely similar to their own universe. The scientists plugged away at it for a few weeks, before giving up and locking the thing away in a big industrial safe just in case anything lucked into Earth’s address and tried to come through.

“So that other time with Daniel was what?” Jack asked Carter. “A fluke?”

“Yes, sir. One in a trillion—unimaginable odds. I can get it roughly focused on the right cluster of multiverses, but there are still countless millions of options.”

“Countless, huh? That’s not very precise of you, Major.”

“You want the exact number, sir?” Carter’s politely deadpan insolence with senior officers was coming along nicely, but then she’d learned from the best.

“Nah,” Jack said. “Countless’ll do it.”

The mirror got shunted off to a remote SGC science department storeroom, safely contained, and started gathering dust. Until the night Jack couldn’t sleep.

He never slept much on that night, if at all, not on the anniversary. Sometimes he drank himself into oblivion, sometimes he didn’t. His liver protested more these days, so he was going off that option. Sometimes they were off-world, dodging Jaffa or running for their lives. Those anniversaries were okay, unlike the ones when he was locked in a prison cell or holed up alone in a cave. It was better with the team, but it didn’t always work out that way.

This time Jack decided to spare his liver and hit the sack early, but sleep wouldn’t come. Instead, he started getting dumb ideas, and finally he got up and drove to the Mountain. The SFs weren’t surprised to see him—he came and went at odd hours pretty often. He took the elevator down to his office and found the report with the details, then took the elevator back up to the right level, found the storeroom, and used his passkey; there were a few advantages to seniority.

It was dark, but he didn’t put the lights on; he’d brought a flashlight. He wasn’t sure why, but he was skulking, and you didn’t do that under fluorescents. He entered the combination for the safe and there it was, gleaming darkly. At first he thought there was nothing at all on the other side, then he made out distant stars. One of the universes where Earth didn’t exist, then.

Jack sat on a box and peered at the mirror. It was about half his height and a couple of yards away. He closed his eyes and thought. When he opened them, the view through the mirror showed a suburban house, clearly on Earth. Jack's heart sped up. He'd been right: it responded to his gene.

He waited, and the front door opened. A guy very like Jack, but with fewer lines on his face and a little more padding around the middle opened the door and turned to call back inside. A young man emerged and clapped the older guy on the back.

“C’mon, Dad,” the young guy said, “We’ll be late.”

“It’s just a squash game, Charlie," the older guy said. "What's the big rush?"

The young guy—Charlie—grinned and put an arm around his shoulders, walking him to a nearby car. “Just 'cause I’m gonna beat you, Dad–”

“Don’t get too cocky,” the Jack of a universe where Charlie hadn’t died said, elbowing his son in the ribs. “I may be old, but I'm cunning.”

Charlie laughed and got into the driver's seat and Jack’s alternate got in in the passenger side, and they drove away.

The mirror went dark; he must have thought it off. Jack found his face was wet. After a while, he locked everything up, took the elevator back topside, and went home to bed, then lay awake the rest of the night.

He was going to save it for the anniversaries, but he just wasn’t that strong, and a week later he was back in the storeroom. He didn’t always see Charlie; sometimes he saw no one, and one time he saw Sara as well, all three of them coming home from some outing, Jack in dress blues and Charlie in a suit and tie. The fact that he couldn’t be sure what he’d see only made it more addictive.

“Are you well, O'Neill? Teal'c asked him, one day in the mess.

"What? Yeah, sure," Jack lied. "I’m fine." Teal'c eyed him carefully, but said nothing more.

He pieced together some things about the other universe from the snippets he saw. He was retired there, and Charlie was at college, maybe studying law. Sara taught something, but he hadn't worked out what. He rationed himself to only using the mirror once a week, but it was hard sticking to the schedule. He had to, though, it cut into his sleep and he couldn't afford to be off his game on missions.

He _was_ off his game though, more tired and distracted than he'd realized and so they got ambushed and fell down a cliff. Teal'c sprained his wrist, and Daniel got concussion. Sam was badly bruised and Jack was banged up and scraped, but they all made it; they survived, no thanks to him.

He swore off the mirror after that, but only lasted a few days. That night, Charlie came out the front door with a pretty girl, laughing and talking softly, and they sat in the porch swing and watched the sunset. When they started kissing, Jack switched it off to give them some privacy, then sat here, head in hands, for a long time.

Daniel had been out of the infirmary a few days and Teal'c was pretty much better, when Jack succumbed to temptation again. It was less than a week, but he couldn't stay away.

He was watching Charlie tote boxes of books and junk to the car, maybe for some sort of sale or charity event, when he heard a noise behind him. Jack straightened slowly, then turned.

"He looks well," Teal'c said, watching Charlie heft a big box of books, calling something back to Sara in the house.

"Yeah," Jack said. His throat seemed to have closed up. "Yeah, he does."

He thought the mirror off, went through his usual routine of locking everything back up, and they walked out together.

Teal'c took him to a bar, their usual place, where Daniel and Carter joined them. They didn't discuss it, but it helped that they knew; Jack felt relieved that he wasn't carrying the burden of it alone any more. He didn't have that much to drink, but he fell asleep soon after he got home, without too much trouble.

The next day Walter mentioned they were reorganizing the SGC science storerooms. "Major Carter's idea, sir—it's gotten pretty cluttered on that level. We're shipping some of it out to Area 51 and warehousing the rest. I can give you a manifest of where it's all going if you want one, sir."

"Nah," Jack said. "Doubt there's anything there I'd be interested in. Carry on, Sergeant."

Yes, sir," said Walter.

 

~ the end ~

 

 


End file.
